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Object Description
Interview no. | G-0025 |
Restrictions | No restrictions. Open to research. |
Project | G.1. Southern Women: Individual Biographies |
Project description | Interviews, 1964-1991 (bulk 1970s), focusing on women's participation in movements for social change. Many deal with southern women active in reform movements between the 1910s women's suffrage movement and the 1960s feminist movement and explore the interaction between the private lives and public activities of women representing various social classes and races. Interviewees include women involved in labor and workers' education movements; African American and white women active in the civil rights movement; and women who, in addition to their contributions to these reform movements, also pursued professional careers. |
Date | June 14, 1974 |
Interviewee | Gray, Wil Lou, 1883-1984. |
Interviewee occupation | Unknown |
Interviewee DOB | Unknown |
Interviewee ethnicity | Unidentified |
Interviewer | Myers, Constance Ashton. |
Abstract | Literacy activist Wil Lou Gray was born in Laurens, South Carolina in 1874. She attended Columbia College in 1899, graduating with a liberal arts degree. She was the vice-president of the YWCA and the business manager for Criterion, the school's monthly magazine. Her experience with Criterion taught her how to meet people and accept defeats and successes. After college, she taught at various schools throughout rural South Carolina. While teaching, she continued her education by taking summer courses at Winthrop College. Following her time at Winthrop, she moved to Youngs, SC where she tutored two of her cousins in preparation for college and raised money for a new schoolhouse. Afterwards, she spent a year at Vanderbilt University pursuing graduate studies. She recalls that while at Columbia College, she grew to support women's suffrage. Her time at Vanderbilt, however, made her more class and race conscious. In 1918 she moved to Columbia, SC to combat illiteracy; she focused on this cause rather than attend pro-suffrage rallies. When asked about the importance of women in SC politics and history, she claims that it was the women who fought for human development by fighting for school attendance, literacy, and libraries. Gray concludes the interview by speaking on her involvement in opportunity schools in mill towns throughout the South. |
Citation | Interview with Wil Lou Gray by Ashton Constance Myers, 14 June 1974 G-0025, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
Description
Interview no. | G0025_Audio |